Edward Linson - November 10, 1981

Life in Monowitz II

When, when you were working at uh, at Monowitz, were any of the people who were in charge...

That's what I mean.

...were they not--were some of them civilians, do you remember?

They're civilians, yes.

Not the SS.

The SS too. The civilians too.

But there were civilians with the SS.

Yes.

Were they Polish or German?

The most uh, the civilian were Polish from over there--Kashubs--this mean from the border.

Kashub, yeah. All right, so that's, that's the morning. What--then what? When you uh, you worked?

We ha...we got to work from--'til the sun set. 'Til was a real like uh, right now.

Did you have anything to eat during the day? What did they feed you during the day?

They, they brought sometime, sometime they brought about six o'clock they brought a little bit soup. The soup maybe was from, from human, uh, I cannot explain you because you wouldn't believe it anyway. It's, it's hard to believe.

I believe whatever you tell me.

Listen, you remember this was a soap with the name RIF. Nobody mentioned to you?

Yeah, I've heard that.

Rein Juden Fett.

So they brought you soup.

Yeah.

Something.

Yeah.

Did they ever give you bread?

Yeah, piece of bread.

Was it real bread or was it something that...

The bread was--it contained from sawdust. You got here in the United States saw dust bread too.

How many hours a day?

Bread?

No, how many hours a day did you work?

We was working from the morning we were standing on Appell sometime three hours, four hours in winter in the greatest frost over there. And sometime you took a, a paper when you was working from uh, uh, bag from cement. You shook out the cement and you put on ear. And if they caught you, they almost kill you.

The standing cell again? When--now you--what--eleven hours, is that what you worked, you think?

Yeah, from the morning--because they, they throw you out from bed it was really four or three o'clock.